


Sunshine

by PunishedPyotr



Series: Only Ones and Zeros [20]
Category: Metal Gear
Genre: Gen, Hacking, Muffins, Virtual Reality, oh yeah we're going here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-25
Updated: 2018-05-25
Packaged: 2019-05-13 20:06:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,141
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14755442
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PunishedPyotr/pseuds/PunishedPyotr
Summary: 『im sorry i scared you :(』





	Sunshine

“I have a question, old man,” the Scandinavian one says.

“Now what,” Mantis sighs. That one is always so nosy, not like the others - the Indonesian who’s just irritable and shouty, or the African who merely lays around and cries. No, the Scandinavian just _has_ to stick her nose into other people’s business, purely so that she could laugh at them. “It had better not be another question about Liquid. I am tired of that.”

“Oh, nooo!” The Scandinavian titters. “I just want to know where you _go_ when Mantis is gone.”

“…excuse me?”

“You know, how she falls asleep when you’re here? It’s funny, when you vanish again and she comes back, she really is tired and yawns a lot like she just woke up! But _you_ …”

“…”

“Tell me tell me tell me,” the Scandinavian presses, leaning way too close to Mantis, “everyone else wants to know too!!”

The Indonesian raises a hand. “Actually, I do want to know.”

Mantis huffs. Well, if _she_ wants it, then it can’t be helped - Mantis had been accused throughout his life of ‘tantrums’ when he didn’t get his way, but he had nothing on this kid. “Very well then. It has to do with why Liquid did not deactivate my nanomachines…”

“Ah! Are you still connected to the network?” the Scandinavian says. For the girls, “the network” is a rather nebulous concept, but they’re aware of its existence - that the Patriots used it to monitor them, back before Liquid Ocelot’s ‘rescue’. (Of course, the Patriots are an _extremely_ nebulous concept for the girls. All they know about it at this point is that it’s _bad_ — a notion formed entirely by Ocelot’s debriefing, along with a very odd, singular obsession with Solid Snake that’s even infected the girl who owns the body Mantis inhabits currently.)

Mantis nods. “There is a VR program connected to the network that I can get to. I go there to relax.”

“Oh,” the African chimes in. “That sounds nice.”

“That sounds _boring_ ,” the Scandinavian says. The Indonesian pinches her, presumably for being rude to the African.

All Mantis can do is shrug and play them off. “It really is quite nice. I set it up some time ago, there is no user interface so the only person who can access it is me. In other words, I get to be alone.” He says the last part pointedly.

“I wish you could have shown us,” the African says, missing the point.

“Ah well.” At this point, it was hypothetically possible that he could - the girls all have new nanomachines hooked up to Ocelot’s computer system, which includes the remains of GW. Except Mantis has no clue how to navigate the network without using his psychic powers to cheat.

Also, why the hell would he want them in _his_ simulation?

“Really, no one can access it?” the Scandinavian says, giggling a little, “there’s nobody who can just get on a computer and check out your virtual hideaway?”

“Of course not,” Mantis replies, “I just said it doesn’t have a user interface.”

“What about a hacker or something?” the Indonesian asks.

“Don’t be ridiculous. What would they want with my VR program, anyway?”

* * *

Liquid is, as usual, not exactly having a good time holed up in Shadow Moses - he’s bored of Angola currently, which is why he’s back in this accursed place — but he found, at least, a way to entertain himself. That being solitaire in the kitchen while his chocolate muffins bake. There really isn’t much else to do (especially since he’s on thin ice with Mantis re: fooling around with Gray Fox. Even though Liquid promised not to make it sexual again, Mantis still threatened to delete that AI).

Something seems… off.

He glances up from his cards. He’s got a weird feeling suddenly, like the hairs on the back of his neck rising, but can’t quite place what it is - it’s frustrating, he _knows_ he’s felt this before but it must have been all the way back when he was still alive. Right now he just… are the muffins burning or something? Everything seems fine, it’s not like he smells—

Smoke. Cigarette smoke.

Liquid whirls around and throws a knife he’d earlier used to cut up a chocolate bar right into the shoulder of one Solid Snake.

Immediately he knows something is off. Snake didn’t dodge the knife, Liquid was absolutely expecting him to, that was intended as more of a warning than anything else - and for another thing, Snake looks absolutely shocked that this happened, and— his expression is so _weird_ , so wide-eyed and almost innocent, it strikes Liquid as incredibly out-of-character.

After a split second of both of them just processing this, Snake lifts his hand to his shoulder and just screams in pain. Liquid is definitely thrown for a loop. The momentary panic of his brother suddenly showing up is chased away by confusion, then he remembers what the AI version of himself has said about this simulation: All users going through the simulation appear to the AIs (which would, now that he thinks about, include himself) in the form of Solid Snake.

 _How is there a user here, though?_ Liquid thinks, but is distracted by the sobbing Snake trying to tug the knife out of his shoulder. Liquid quickly runs over and stops him - seems he's the polar opposite of a threat, after all, there's no reason to not be civil. “Hey, you’ll hurt yourself worse!”

“Uu…” Snake doesn’t say anything intelligible in response, just bats Liquid away clumsily. Now that Liquid knows this isn’t actually Solid Snake he can begin to see that whoever this is, they’re far from being a soldier. Just the way ‘he’ holds ‘himself’ is completely wrong. ‘Snake’ weakly raises his other hand and makes a motion with his fingers like he’s typing on an invisible mid-air keyboard — the knife disappears from his shoulder, and the wound immediately vanishes. Resetting the injury variables, Liquid realizes.

“Who are you?” Liquid says. He’s on edge, but stabbing Snake again isn’t going to help anything, obviously.

“Ah…” Snake doesn’t really respond. “Mm… n.” Maybe the user behind him doesn’t speak English? Liquid tries repeating his query in another language - and covers his mouth, eyes widening as he realizes that though he can _think_ in any of the six other languages he knows he can’t get the words out of his mouth. Dammit, another subroutine they conveniently left out? And here he thought the programmers had good attention to detail…

Snake shakes his head. Liquid doesn’t know at what. He raises his hands again, makes the typing motions with both hands now, and a… window pops up. Like, a window on a computer, a flat white-gray one-dimensional rectangle floating in midair near his head. Words pop up on it as Snake ‘types’.

『im sorry i scared you :(』

Liquid blinks. “You just startled me,” he says awkwardly. “Now, who are you?”

Snake types some more. The window clears itself and new words pop up.『my names sunny !』

“That’s… interesting. Wasn’t really what I meant, though - what are you, a Patriot AI?”

Snake shakes his head.

“…right. Except there’s not many people who can find this simulation.”

『it was hard 2 find but i wanted 2 see where the traffic was going』

“Traffic?” Eh… this person, they couldn’t mean Mantis, could they? Had they been found out? “Are you… a real person?”

Snake frowns at him. It is… _not_ the sort of expression an adult would make, and Liquid finds it extremely, well, weird. 『im a real person !! my names sunny im almost 5 years old !!!』

“…of course you are.” Somehow Liquid believes them on not being an AI, it just feels right to him. He does remember his AI counterpart saying he could tell if someone was an AI or not (more or less), so he supposes that’s why. But… five, no, _four_ years old…? That’s ridiculous. A real, living person navigating through the network to get to this VR simulation would have to be either psychic (very unlikely) or some kind of crazy hacker. And what kind of crazy hacker would also be a four-year-old? Not likely.

…unless, they were a crazy _adult_ hacker and some sort of pervert…

Snake puffs out his cheeks.『you dont belief me』pops up on the window.『thats not fair ais are sposd to belief anything i tell them』

“I’m… not the sort of AI you think I am,” Liquid says carefully. “Believing you out of hand just isn’t in my… parameters.” Since he doesn’t know who this actually _is_ , he reasons it’s best not to let slip his status as a ghost or whatever he is exactly.

『is it becuz im using the defalt avatar ?』

“Er…”

In a blink, Snake is gone, and despite being aware that it’s not the _real_ Snake Liquid is relieved - though flustered by the whole situation, and annoyed that he still has no way of confronting the real Snake directly. But all that aside, standing where Snake just was is a little girl - about four or five, as said earlier - with gray hair and plain clothes.

Liquid stares at her blankly.

The girl smiles at him, makes the same typing notions as before.『this is me ! im sunny ! this is what i look like irl !! i made an avatar to match for other vr i usally do』

“That… what?”

『i do vr all day ! but i got bored so i looked in other places in the network ! i found you !!!』

“Okay, hold on. Stop this typing thing, why don’t we just _speak?_ ”

“Um…” the girl - Sunny - says. More typing.『i cant rly talk, i dont know how』

“Don’t know _how?_ ” Liquid parrots incredulously. “How do you not _know_ how to talk?”

『no one ever talks 2 me but thats ok typings better anyway』She frowns as she types this, clearly uncomfortable and upset at Liquid.『all the ais in my vr dont care if i type 2 talk 2 them !』

“Well, of course, but… surely there’s someone to talk to you outside of VR? Why don’t they just do so?”

『i dont rly go outside of vr』

There’s an awkward pause. Liquid is keenly aware that he might be getting suckered as usual, but… well, he’s always one to trust his instincts. And maybe they’ve been fooled before (like, it seems to be some uncanny ability of Ocelot’s), but at the very least if he _plays along_ then maybe he can figure out what this “Sunny” wants.

The oven dings. Ah yes, the perfect opportunity. “Why don’t you sit down… Sunny?” Liquid says, a little awkwardly, gesturing the chair where he was just sitting. “I think we should have a talk. Do you want a muffin?”

“Mm!” Sunny nods energetically, climbing into Liquid’s chair. She makes another keyboard motion and Liquid’s solitaire game teleports to another part of the counter, not a card out of place.

Liquid excises the muffins from the tin, nearly burning his hand several times in doing so and realising extremely belatedly he completely forgot the liners - it’s a crumbled mess of sweetbread and melted chocolate by the time he sets one in front of Sunny, but she doesn’t complain. Liquid sits across from her.

“So,” he says. “Let’s start over. Who are you?”

Muffin in one hand and mouth full anyway, Sunny types again.『i told you im sunny im almost 5 and i do vr all day becuz theres noone around irl』

“You’re… always in VR?” Sunny nods. Liquid frowns. “You’re not… dead, or anything, are you?”

Sunny looks confused.『why would i be dead』pops up on her window,『im alive ! i live in a big busy building its very gray』

“…?” Liquid feels like there’s some odd significance to what Sunny is saying, but he doesn’t understand what she’s getting at himself. “You’re really four years old?”

『im almost 5 !!!』Sunny huffs. She seems annoyed at him questioning her.

“Fantastic,” Liquid says, sitting back in his chair. “I’m no good with kids, you know.”

Sunny shakes her head. 『i dont know who you are』

“…what?”

『i dont i just wanted to see what was in this vr program, i was esploring』

“But you…” She seems sincere. “Do you know what this place is?”

『its a vr simulation ! i saw it was named “ Shadow Moses “ in the directory but also has map data named “ Angola Safari 02.12 “』

“Little girl, this is a military combat simulator. Ordinarily it’s populated by hostile enemy soldiers.”

『i know but i saw they were deactivated ! and there were 2 ais named “ Liquid Snake “ but only 1 of them was active thats you !!!』

“Er…” Liquid is gradually realizing he has no idea how to approach this. “How did you even get in this network in the first place?” he asks suspiciously.

『parts of it are cunnected 2 the network my normmal vr is in』

“Ah, so you’re… ordinarily undergoing some sort of VR training in the Patriot network,” Liquid says.

Sunny gives him a confused look.『im not training』she tells him,『im practicing code mostly but i do that on my own ! all im sposd 2 do in my vr is just have fun !』

“…right.”

『and who are the patriuts ?』

Now it’s Liquid’s turn for the confused look… again. “You know… the people who run the network. If you’re deep enough in it that you found Shadow Moses, then surely you’ve seen evidence of their existence.”

『i know the people who run the network』Sunny says,『their the same people who take care of me irl ! but their not called the patriuts their called the lolly luly low !』

“Ah. Yes. That’s them. That’s another one of their names.”

“Oh,” Sunny says out loud.

Something isn’t adding up here… or is it? Liquid remembers something from after the tanker incident. “Tell me, child,” he says, in a friendly a manner as he can, “what’s your full name?”

『sunny』

“I mean, your family name. Do you know it?”

Sunny thinks for a moment, then types carefully like she isn’t sure how to spell it. The letters show up one at at time and Liquid already knows what it is and it’s only confirmed by the time the third letter appears.

『gurlukovich』

So that’s it then.

Olga’s kid that the Patriots stole - they just hooked her up to some VR programs and left her there, probably having her physical needs taken care of automatically via nanomachines or robots or whatever. Also included would be the insta-kill switch should Olga have failed her mission - but she didn’t, and died in the process so the child still lives but now the Patriots don’t have any further use for her. She’s lucky they didn’t just kill her outright over that. Instead they just apparently ignored her to the point where she could figure out how to escape her designated VR and wander the network freely…

… _or,_ this could be a trap. Liquid, on edge again, glances over his shoulder. Sunny gives him a curious look. He doesn’t really doubt at this point that Sunny is who she says she is, but that doesn’t preclude it being a trap. Maybe the Patriots _let_ Sunny wander off so she could find him and bring them right to him. Sunny may have no idea.

“Listen,” Liquid says, leaning forward a little over the counter, “one of the people taking care of you - suppose they could follow you through the network?”

『i dont think so』Sunny types.

“Are you _sure?_ It could be bad if I’m found, you know. As I said, I’m not a normal AI. I don’t want to be found, you being here could put me in danger.”

『but theres already traffic coming to this vr』Sunny replies, confused.『lots of traffic, people comes here at least every 3 days !』

“Just one person,” Liquid says.

Sunny blinks, then does a lot of typing that doesn’t show up on her window. After less than a full minute, text appears again.『your right mr its just 1 ip address that comes here so much its a nanomachine system address』

“And that _one person_ is the _only one_ who can know about this simulation,” Liquid says irritably, standing up. “Do you _know_ what you could have done, child? You could have lead _them_ straight to me - I could get deleted—“

『ill make sure you dont』Sunny promises.

Liquid snorts. “And how do you intend to do _that?_ ”

Sunny puts down the rest of her muffin, waves at him, and disappears. Someone Liquid can tell she’s _gone_ , not just turned invisible or something.

“…” Liquid sits back down. That was extremely odd, and now he’s extremely anxious. As much as he’d love a confrontation with the Patriots, he has no way to do it - on this turf, all they would have to do is delete his program. He has literally no way of defending himself from that. Here one moment, dead the next.

He rubs his eyes. If it weren’t for the half-finished muffin on the counter and the relocation of his solitaire cards, he’d be able to write the whole thing off as a hallucination. Even though he, as far as he knows, isn’t programmed to have full-on psychotic episodes anymore and hasn’t hallucinated anything or had a single delusion ever since he wound up here.

Liquid sighs, and supposes the only thing he can do is talk to Mantis about it when he comes home.

* * *

Mantis comes home to a weird atmosphere. He finds Liquid playing solitaire silently by himself in the kitchen with a half-eaten muffin sitting on the counter a little ways away from him, ignored. Just from the way he kept sulking in the kitchen when Mantis came back instead of running to find him, Mantis knows something is wrong. He gives Liquid the opportunity to tell him himself instead of digging through his memories.

“What _would_ you do if I got deleted?” Liquid says without looking at Mantis, instead focusing on the card he’s just turned over.

“Eli. What brings this up?” Better to cut right to the heart of the matter.

“…I had a visitor today.”

“…”

“She claimed to be Olga Gurlukovich’s daughter - yes, that would make her about five years old — told me the Patriots just have her stuck going through VR to keep her entertained while they ignore her. She's some kind of hacker now and noticed that someone was going to a specific place in the network every few days and decided to come too.”

“I… I see.”

“I didn’t tell her who I was, but… this means that someone besides you can get here. Even if she really was a little child, I can’t discount the possibility that the Patriots suspect something and let her wander through the network on purpose so she could eventually find me.”

Mantis is silent. Liquid turns around in his chair to look at him. He’s got that too-stoic, jaw-set expression he always gets when he’s scared and doesn’t want to let on, even in front of Mantis.

“What are we going to do?”

“We do not know that that is the case yet,” Mantis says carefully. “‘She’ could be anyone. The Patriots might not have tracked her. No - in fact, I am sure that they did not. You’re still here.”

“…”

“And besides,” Mantis says, trying not to sound as uncertain as he is, “even if someone from within the Patriot network could _access_ GW, that does not necessarily mean that they can meddle with the files _in_ GW. Remember, the part of the network that you reside in is under Ocelot’s control.”

“I… I suppose.”

“…I will go back to Ocelot and see what I can do from there,” Mantis says, petting Liquid’s hair. “Clearly our cyberdefenses are not up to scratch currently.”

“Mmn.” Liquid leans into his touch. Counter-productive as it is, he really wants Mantis to stay right now.

Mantis will indulge him for a few minutes. But then he needs to go inform Ocelot that someone from the Patriots has apparently penetrated their system and he needs his programmers to get on that.

A new presence suddenly appears in the kitchen. Liquid jumps, seeing it at the same time Mantis senses it. “Sunny, you’re back!” Liquid says in surprise, and Mantis looks over his shoulder to see… Solid Snake.

Mantis has all of a second to be shocked before Snake turns into a little gray-haired girl who waves cheerily at the two of them before trotting over to the other kitchen chair, climbing up on it, and claiming the uneaten muffin.

A gray-white dialogue box appears by her head. Words appear as she finishes the muffin, getting chocolate on her hands and cheeks.『im back mr did you miss me ? i made sure no one followed me 2 ! there was some more traffic 2 here but that must be your friend here right ?』

Liquid glances at Mantis. Mantis blinks.

“Incredible,” he says, reading her mind - because she is a real person, she does have a mind to read — “she _is_ exactly who she says she is. It’s just like you said, Eli.”

『eely ?』Sunny gives Liquid a curious look.『is that your name mr ? your program is named “ Liquid Snake “ tho』She turns to Mantis.『who are you ?』

“How did you make sure no one followed you?” Mantis asks her.

『i checked for more traffic ! but also they can check what vr im in so i changed that code a little』She looks very proud of herself.『one of the maps here was named “ Angola Safari 02.12 “ and when they check 2 see what vr im in they just check 2 see the name of the map im in so i renamed all instances of “ Angola Safari 02.12 “ in this program to “ African Adventure 14.08 “ thats the name of a map that they gave me ! and then i set it so that whenever im here it always says im in that map not this one』

That whole explanation went over Liquid’s head, and Mantis is more concerned about something else. “You speak as though you plan to come back,” he says.

“Mm!” Sunny nods.『mr eely is my friend now :)』

Liquid gets an expression that clearly says if he had been drinking something at that moment, he would have spat it out. Mantis can’t help but laugh. Liquid shoots him a glare.

“…well,” Mantis says, “she certainly isn’t trying to put us in any danger, and the risk of having her around seems minimal.”

『so i can stay ?』

“But it does concern me that someone from the Patriot-controlled part of the network was able to _get here_ in the first place…”

Sunny flaps her hands cheerfully.『there was a really tough firewall to get past, i got past it for practice but i dont think anyone else can do it ! i even put it back when i was done playing with it !! except i left a backdoor for myself, but no one else just me』

“You broke past the firewall for practice?” Liquid says, “I thought you said you were investigating the traffic you found to this part of the network.”

『i couldnt see the traffic until i got past the firewall but once i did i just wanted to esplore i told you』

“In other words,” Mantis says, raising a hand to his forehead, “you got bored of the VR the Patriots kept you and chose to explore their network as a whole, and found the firewall between their intact network and Ocelot’s GW… and decided to break past the firewall for fun… and now want to explore GW? And this has lead you to the Shadow Moses simulation?”

“Uh-huh!” Sunny nods, even though she isn't sure about half of what Mantis is referring to.

“And you’ve decided that Eli is your friend.”

“Uh-huh!!”『hes a really special ai i like him !!! :)』

Mantis turns to Liquid. “I suppose,” he says evenly, “as long as it is _just her_ , there really is no harm in letting her run around GW.”

“I thought you hated kids,” Liquid snarks.

“I do.”

Sunny ignores the exchange, instead pointing at the muffin tin.『can i have another one mr eely ?』

“What’s the magic word,” Liquid says, successfully distracted.

『please :) :) :)』

“Say it out loud.”

“Uu…” Sunny hesitates.

“Come on. At least try.”

“P… p-pu…”

“‘Please’,” Liquid instructs. Mantis suddenly realizes why Liquid was so quick to get, well, not exactly attached to her, but to accept her presence.

“P-P-Pu-lee… pleeeee…”

She’s a lot like Mantis when he was younger, isn’t she? Nonverbal and innocent, talented, cursed by circumstances to a hellish, isolated lab existence.

“P-Pu-lee-suh?” Sunny tries. Liquid smiles at her and gives her a muffin. She eats it happily.

This could be interesting.

**Author's Note:**

> hahahaha I don't know how to write small children ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
> 
> ETA: More than one person made this mistake, so I guess I wasn't clear enough on it, sorry. This takes place _before_ Raiden rescues Sunny. She's still in Patriot custody, in Area 51. Since this series is canon-compliant, obviously her arc will end with Raiden rescuing her and her never (fully) going into Patriot VR again.


End file.
